DETROIT, MI — She walks with high heels and trendy over-sized sunglasses across Woodward Avenue with shopping in mind.

She's destined for the previously-empty building at 1261 Woodward.

Inside is the site of the new Somerset Collection City Loft where she'll find high-end retailers peddling their wares: purses, shoes, a New York-style shampoo-and-blowout station, fragrances, sunglasses and a myriad of other products you usually have to travel to the Somerset Collection mall in Troy to buy.

The industrial-sheik downtown mini-mall held it's grand opening Thursday and is set to operate three days each month through August.

Forty-three of the Collection's 180 retailers participated today and will be rotated throughout the summer.

"It's similar concept that they do in New York; it's pop-up shops," said
Somerset Collection Marketing Director Linda McIntosh. "We came last
year, it was an experiment and Detroit really rolled the red carpet out
for us, we had a ball and our retailers begged us to come back."

Across the street is the concrete slab that until 1998 propped the retail giant Hudson's flagship store.

Today, rows of blue shade tents housed unique products you won't find in the Somerset Collection, paintings, 31D (the D in Olde English style) T-shirts, metal cuff bracelets inscribed with a map of Bell Isle, hand-made clothing and boxes made from nostalgic Michigan or Detroit nicknacks, like rulers, pencils and matchbooks.

"Thirty years ago there was an event called Downtown Detroit Days, and
that's when four Somerset Collections could fit in the retail (that at the time existed) in
Detroit," McIntosh said. "So Downtown Detroit days was a day that just
celebrated retail and we brought it back."

McIntosh doesn't understand why more retailers don't take advantage of the upswing that is occurring in downtown among the businesses and residents.

"The market is definitely here, and the enthusiasm is here, so it's a question I can't really answer," she said.

Quicken Loans and it's affiliate companies sponsored the event and donated toward the $300,000 renovation of their building that houses the Somerset Collection City Loft on Woodward.Hundreds of Quicken Loan interns wearing yellow, blue, pink and green T-shirts packed the launch event commemorated with a balloon release at 10:30 a.m. Thursday.

"I like it; it definitely brings a lot back to Detroit," Terrence Minter, 22, of Detroit, a Quicken Loans intern who toted a bag containing a newly-purchased $70 Lacoste shirt. "Detroit has a bad reputation but being able to bring down Somerset, which is kind of a luxury to most people, I think it's definitely giving Detroit a nice little atmosphere.

"Most malls aren't in Detroit, so there's not a lot of places to shop... Hopefully this can spark something... a lot of people don't have the opportunity to drive out to Somerset."

Minter cited a lack of good retail location as the reason a mall hasn't popped up in downtown; others said parking is an issue that needs to be resolved first.

"I think this is just the beginning of a bigger thing," Minter said. "I think in a
couple years you'll see a lot of this stuff going on regularly."